There hasn't been a whole lot of cooking in The Delicious Life kitchen lately...
The usual explanations could apply
Too hot to turn on the stove.
Too distracted by the summer outside.
Too much watermelon in the refrigerator because you're only a family of two plus a chihuahua who eats nothing but Brie cheese and birthday cakes.
(Don't ask. That's how we found her.)
It was a mistake to put watermelon in the #1 spot on 31 Things to Eat and Drink Before Summer Fades. While it is probably the most representative food of summer and thus seems logically ranked as first, a massive 16-pound melon at the top of a list for someone who is selectively OCD is an obstacle, effectively a fruity roadblock to checking your way down the rest of the list.
Blackberry cobbler for dessert? Not until we finish that three-quarters of a watermelon.
Tomatoes for a caprese salad? We should make a Watermelon Feta Salad.
Clambake this weekend? Can we throw some cut watermelon into that pot?
Rosé spritzer?
Whoa whoa whoa. Now that's just not fair. Even if I paid $1 billion out of my own retirement fund for a 40-acre watermelon farm, I'd never opt out of a glass of rosé spritzed with soda.
But at the same time, watermelon juice and sparkling water with a splash of ginger and lime is not a bad "you have to finish this first," especially in this heat wave that has suddenly! surprisingly! suffocated southern California like I've forgotten that we have one every year. Even more especially if you spike it with the more availabler of either vodka or gin.
The sparkling water in the background is Ferrarelle, an Italian brand of sparkling mineral water, which I discovered on my own at Terroni a few months ago, and then tried at home (thank you Denise!). I have never tasted two different sparkling waters side-by-side, let alone an entire line-up, and I certainly don't have a refined enough palate to legitimately review sparkling waters, so let me just illegitimately say that I find Ferrarelle slightly more refreshing than other sparkling waters I've tried.
Who knows why Ferrarelle tastes more refreshing. Maybe there are more minerals. Maybe it has finer/coarser/less/more effervescence. Maybe my refrigerator was set to a lower temperature that day. Maybe I'm biased because the two bottles that were sent to my house also came with a corkscrew and that just takes us back to...
Rosé spritzer?
Add some watermelon juice...
P.S. Supposedly both Bristol Farms and Whole Foods Markets carry Ferrarelle sparkling water, though I didn't see any when I stopped at both store in my neighborhood this week. If you want to try it, it's probably better to just tweet at Ferrarelle and ask, as I couldn't find any info about retailers on their website.
www.ferrarelleusa.com
twitter.com/ferrarelleusa
Watermelon Soda {kind of a recipe}
Really? Am I typing out a "recipe" for mixing fresh watermelon juice with sparkling water and adding a splash of lime juice and /or ginger juice? Really?!
Really.
Ingredients
ice
watermelon juice, either extracted from a juicer or pureed in a blender then strained
sparkling water (you can use any carbonated water like club soda, seltzer, etc, though obvs, for this I used Ferrarelle, a naturally sparkling mineral water)
lime juice
ginger juice
lime wedges, candied ginger, and fresh mint leaves for garnish
optional: splash of liquor of your choice
Directions
Place a few ice cubes in glass.
Pour half-a-glassful of watermelon juice into a glass. Fill the remainder of the glass with sparkling water. Add a splash of lime and/or ginger juice.
Garnish with lime wedge, candied ginger, and fresh mint leaves (this is probably just a me-only thing, but mint garnish is obnoxious when there is no actual mint in the drink).
Waterlover says
This looks like a delightful & festive refresment. Sadly Im out of sparkling water, tonic water, soda water, seltzer, etc. May I modify by dropping an alka seltzer into this thing? Isnt AS just sparkling water for the woman on the go?
123 says
*gag*.... no.
Sarah J. Gim says
waterlover: if by "woman on the go," you mean "parties so hard the night before she needs both an antacid AND aspirin," then by all means, yes! Alka Seltzer dropped into a glass of watermelon juice! but even as a DIE HARD alka seltzer fan ( i actually believe the tablets to be the savior of all humanity ) it sounds kind of disgusting.
unless the alka seltzer is the lemon-lime flavor.
thyme (sarah) says
Oh Sarah, this is one of the mixed watermelon drinks that I have tried. I absolutely adored it but no one in my family believed it would be tasty until I made it. I loved the watermelon flavors mixed with the sparkling water and splash of liquor!
waterlover says
In desperation, I ate the watermelon in chunks au natural like a wild animal might do. I will get this ferrarelle soon.